{"id":210061,"date":"2026-06-04T01:12:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-04T01:12:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/210061\/"},"modified":"2026-06-04T01:12:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-04T01:12:10","slug":"statue-honors-late-west-scranton-high-school-student-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/210061\/","title":{"rendered":"Statue honors late West Scranton High School student"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Underneath black cloth is a statue memorializing a West Scranton student taken far too soon.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">A rose to remember, 18-year-old Rose Hernandez, a senior who was killed back in December, now stands tall in the school&#8217;s alumni courtyard. Her family stood by, holding back tears as they remember a niece, a sister, and a daughter.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;Happy, you know what I mean? Happy in one part because it&#8217;s a lot of people, see that at least knew my daughter, how she was,&#8221; said Irineo Hernandez, father.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Officials with the district even presented Rose&#8217;s family with her diploma. A part of life that, before her death, friend Allison Juarez says they looked forward to accomplishing together. &#8220;She had such a funny, bubbly personality, so if I was ever feeling down, she could really say anything, and I would start laughing,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;I&#8217;ve never saw her sad, and just seeing like the rose that she&#8217;s always gonna be here with us and her friends that she really was more close with that they also have a place and her family too,&#8221; said Janellyn Alonso Perez, West Scranton Junior.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Police say Hernandez died after 18-year-old Joseph Garcia ran her over with a car along Round Woods Place in Scranton.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Many students who called Hernandez a friend came up with the idea for the statue and even built it themselves.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">It will also serve as a memorial for all students whose lives were cut short.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;It&#8217;s a real shame to have a student or anybody lose their life early, and it was a great way to honor them and make sure people remember, remember those students who lost or didn&#8217;t get the opportunities that other students do,&#8221; said Ryan Hnat.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">A life taken by tragedy will now be remembered by a beautiful rose that will never wilt.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Underneath black cloth is a statue memorializing a West Scranton student taken far too soon. A rose to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":210062,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[92139,92138,38316,38317,178,180,179,6984,5554],"class_list":["post-210061","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-alonso-perez","tag-irineo-hernandez","tag-joseph-garcia","tag-rose-hernandez","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news","tag-student","tag-west-scranton"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210061","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=210061"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210061\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/210062"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=210061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=210061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=210061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}